24/7 Care to People – Health and Social Services

Postedon October 24, 2011

This session at the recent PSI APRECON held in Sydney, brought together speakers from across the Asia Pacific – Japan, Korea, Fiji & Australia – to discuss from the perspective of each delegate the situation in their own countries in relation to Violence in the Workplace.

Each presentation was delivered with passion anad commitment with regard to minimisation or indeed eradication violence from workplaces. Unfortunately the presentations confirmed that workers right aross the Asia Pacific region face similar versions of workplace violence ranging from veral abuse, through physical abuse and in the case of Australia two fatalies for nurses in the last 12 months.

With the continual erosion of public services due to insufficient funding results in more work having to be performed by less workers and often those workers have less skills than is appropriate. This fosters an angry client base and the extra pressure put on public servants in their workplaces often translates into violence being visited upon them by consumers who have high expectations of the care they should receive and low tolerance for waiting times.

The participants were unanimous in their view that focus needs to be maintained on this very important matter and that the only ultimate answer to diminishing violence in the workplace is the maintenance of quality public services by appropriately funding and resourcing such services and provide quality education to both the consumers of the services and the publlic servants who deliver them. The PSI initiative in participating in the Steeering Committee for the biennial international conference on Violence in the Workplace is just one avenue to enusre access to quality education on this issue. The next International Conference on Violence in the Workplace will take place in Vancouver in late 2012.